The giant wave of destruction
The story opens with the author having breakfast one sunny morning on the terrace of the Havana Riviera Hotel. Suddenly, a huge wave rises up over the sea wall, leaps over the wide, two-way street and hits the twenty-storey building of the hotel. The wave is so strong, it throws up into the air the cars on the avenue, the tourists in the lobby and the furniture of the hotel and even shatters the window panes.

A dead woman with a serpent ring
In the chaos that follows, a car is found to be embedded in the hotel wall with a dead woman at the wheel. She is soon identified as the Portuguese ambassador's housekeeper. The only thing that could be recovered from the woman was her gold serpent shaped ring with emerald eyes.
The author is intrigued by this information as he is reminded of another woman he had met many years back who had worn a similar ring on her right forefinger. The author is unable to find out which finger the dead woma…